


Silvershod

by anniesburg



Category: Hellboy (Movies)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Love Triangle Elements, Nonspecific Time and Place, Post-Hellboy 2 Prequel, mini-series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: In the north country, a hunter sits in a house made of iron. He remembers a pale elf prince with a silver lance who gave and took what was most precious.





	Silvershod

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is a modified quote from Ellen Steibler's poem "Silvershod" based on the fairytale of the same name, from which a lot of the theming in this probably two chapter fic borrows. Also I won't lie, this one's kinda weird but I wanted to think outside the box. Hope you enjoy xoxo!!

You live in a time without iron. Not necessarily before its invention, but the humans in the forest understand that it is polite to go without. Every nail, cauldron and hair pin you have to your name gleams copper in the light of the hearth. 

A sturdy house of wood logs keeps you safe from the late autumn, the wolves and the hunters. You’re farthest off the trail, a long way from town and every other soul who speaks your language. The placement of your home helps you understand best of all the great persistence of a hunter, and it’s become a part of your routine to rise from your fireside chair at half-past four every day. 

From outside, you hear feet on your steps and a fist posed to fall heavily on your door. You open it, met with the sight of a strong arm attached to a handsome man. His cheeks are apple-red from the incoming winter, nearly the colour of his hair under his hat. He’s beaming broadly, you smile back. 

“’Lo,” he says and you nod. 

“Yes, hello. Good afternoon,” you never know what to say to your hunter. Neither does he. So he lets his arm fall, grabbing at something strung through a loop in his belt. He raises it again, not to knock but to show you something dead and furry. 

“Brought’cha rabbit today,” he states rather plainly and you open the door a bit further. 

“You shouldn’t have,” you say, standing slightly to the side, enough to tell him he’s allowed in. He really shouldn’t, but he does. Every other day he brings you a slice of his hunt, no charge. Most days it’s fish or pheasant, but you like rabbit best. 

“I wanted to. On the table, yeah?” he asks, strutting into your living room and giving it an easy-to-recognize once-over. The place is clean, you’ve kept up with your chores. All that’s left to do today is check by the river for mushrooms. 

“Yeah,” you confirm, closing the door to keep out the cold. It seeps through the cracks no matter what, but all you can take are precautionary measures. “if you’re still in the woods come nightfall, visit me again. I’ll have supper ready, it’s only fair to share it with you.” 

The hunter’s looking at your embroidery, set on the small table. He puts the rabbit down well away from it and seems for a few minutes like he didn’t hear you. But he has, he lifts his head and the warmth of the sun is in his eyes. 

“Oh, aye. That’d be lovely,” you like how he says lovely. It pinks your cheeks and you drop your gaze to the floor. “should be goin’, been trackin’ a deer for miles and miles. Do you like deer?” you nod. 

“I do, but it’s quite expensive.” your hunter gives a little shrug that alludes to an uneasy air of mystery. He isn’t the type to have secrets and certainly not the sort to keep them.

“Won’t really matter how costly it is when I trap this one,” he says. Your brow furrows as he starts towards the door. Without thinking, you step in front of it. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, greedy for the truth. He shrugs again, unsure how else to appear nonchalant. 

“Where this deer goes, so does a warrior,” he begins. “one with a silver lance, can you guess at who that might be?” he’s teasing you, the hunter has to be. Your eyes widen. 

“I do, I do. Is it really the prince? The elf in exile?” the hunter nods. “What was his name?” 

“Nuada,” he tells you. “I called out to him once and he looked right at me.” the hunter points towards his face. “Got eyes like a cat’s in the dark, scary as anythin’.” 

Prince Nuada in this part of the forest, you almost can’t believe it. 

“I still don’t understand why the cost won’t matter any,” you say. The hunter smiles a grim smile. 

“When I bag the deer, I’ll bag the elf prince. That lance’ll be worth more than winter’s worth of pelts.” it’s a ludicrous plan, perhaps you shouldn’t say so but you’re unaccustomed to needing to hold your tongue. 

“You really think you’ll be able to kill him?” you ask. Your stomach twists when he nods with a sick sort of pride. He reaches behind him, patting the quiver on his back. He sets his bow outside, but you’ve seen it. 

“I’m the best shot this side of the woods and my pa’s the best fletcher. He gave me somethin’ that should do the trick.” the hunter reaches into his quiver and pulls from it three, thin arrows. They’re topped with a sharp, dark metal. 

“You brought iron here? Are you out of your head?” your exasperation stems from a lifetime of stories, respect the magic that surrounds you and it will do the same. Iron’s for cities, but the hunter’s outstretched arm to show you it feels like an encroachment. 

“I know, I know. But when it’s done I’ll run for town and live out my days as a rich man. I won’t have to come back here to hunt.” you let out a slow breath. 

“I still think you’re insane,” you say. 

“But able to do it?” he asks like he craves the approval, that your word will make it so. 

You know the truth, if any human had the aim to kill an elf it’s your hunter. But to tell him so, to encourage this for the chance at riches? You sigh. 

“Just because you’re able doesn’t mean you should,” it occurs to you to stop him, to put your hands on his arms and hold him in place. But you don’t reach out, you don’t take the iron-tipped arrows from him and cast them into your fire. You step to the side. 

“Mark me, I’ll find that deer and I’ll find that elf. I’ll kill ‘em both and then---” he nods again and brushes past you, opening the door. He doesn’t finish his sentence. 

You’re annoyed with yourself for completing your chores with so much daylight left. To sit still and continue your needlework when you know the hunter’s plan is asking too much. You’ve stood up from your chair and crossed the room to the door more times than you can count. 

It occurs to you after a half-hour of idleness that the stream awaits. Perhaps you could whittle away at your fear there, the riverbank is as familiar to you as home. The water knows how to listen. 

You take your shawl and your basket, toeing your shoes on over your stockings and spending extra time lacing them. The act is close to normal, close to safe and the jitterbug feeling in your chest lessens. 

Frost is still on the ground, it will be winter so soon. You’ve survived them since you were a child, you’re ready to welcome the dark season. 

You follow the path through the forest cleared two springs ago, a direct way to the clean water and fish. A thin film of ice has already formed over the top of the dark water, around the plank of wood that serves as a bridge. You prod at the ice with your fingers until it shatters like a pane of glass. 

The cold water on your face could freeze to your cheeks, but it makes you feel alive. It makes you forget the mad glee in your hunter’s eyes for a moment. You tug your shawl tightly around your shoulders to keep the chill from settling in your bones. When your hands are warm, you begin what you came here to do. 

Mushrooms sprout in little clusters, easily collected and brushed of grass and dirt. When the snow blows and piles high, you won’t have this to look forward to. Crossing the little bridge of wood, you continue towards the forest on your search. 

The setting sun burns the line of the horizon through the trees, shining through the remaining leaves like gold. The yellow haze above the beech and oak trees shimmers in a metaphorical sense as the grass crunches under your feet. But something just out of the corner of your eye sparkles in a tangible sense, you turn your head towards it. It isn’t gold, either. It gleams silver. 

And it’s embedded in a tree, almost forgotten. You walk towards it, your brow furrowing as you wonder what in the world it could be. Strange things in the forest are best left alone but the brightness of the forthcoming dusk against whatever it is piques your interest in a new way. 

It looks like a spearhead stuck in the bark of the tree. You stare at it for a moment, it’s metal and gleams like silver. Setting your basket beside you, you try to pry it from the wood. It takes a moment of coaxing, of rocking it back and forth with two hands before it comes free. Thankfully, it doesn’t cut you but the edges are clearly sharper than any knife. 

Someone took the time to make it beautiful. Identical decorative lines run nearly from point to base, it feels impossibly light in your hands and you have to wonder if it really might be silver. 

How did it get here? No one you know would hunt with something like this, if that’s indeed why it ended up in the tree. Your mind’s called to the hunter and his iron arrows, to the deer he’s chasing and the elf chasing it. 

Something compels you to look up just as the thought of tho this spearhead might belong to enters your head. It’s some kind of magic, it must be, because there is no other noise. But when you stare between the spaces in the trees, you see him. 

He’s so pale from the neck up, but otherwise indistinguishable in the failing sunlight given the brown-black of his clothes. You blink and suddenly he’s no longer facing you, he’s running through the forest. You don’t even risk gasping, let alone closing your eyes again before you take off after him. 

The prince, for if he’s not the prince then you’ll be sorely disappointed, makes no sound as he leaves you behind. You, on the other hand, are near-painfully noisy. By comparison you snap every twig, upturn every stone. You glance down at the earth in front of you for only a moment, terrified to trip on a tree root or protruding rock. Nuada leaves no footprints. 

“Wait!” your voice sounds like whipping wind and an oncoming storm in the face of all this quiet. Its commanding tone bothers you, prompts you to continue, “Please, wait!” 

It isn’t immediately clear that he intends to. He disappears through a small gap in the trees ahead, you’re nearly certain he’s gone and almost slow your pace. But you hold out hope, the spearhead still gingerly held in your hand. 

You’re not sure what you feel in the face of the clearing that lies beyond the trees where you lost sight of nuada. It’s not very wide, perhaps half the size of your home and perfectly circular. You can’t recall anyone creating it for a homestead, not this far out. 

In the centre sits a stump as large as your dinner table, the age lines incalculable for the sheer number of them. As much as you’d like to imagine what happened to the tree that once stood here, you’re distracted. 

He steps out of the dark, strange against this familiar backdrop. You can’t help but wonder if he’s thinking the same about the way you stand. 

“Does this belong to you?” you ask, lifting the hand holding the silver spearhead. 

“It does,” he replies and you’re struck by how at-odds his voice is with his appearance. 

The prince is far from slight, but he doesn’t walk on the same earth as you. He’s so pale, like someone drained him of blood and siphoned tree sap in its place. His eyes are unnerving, yellow like two harvest moon’s. He holds himself like royalty, bearing strange scars across his cheeks and his temples where his candle-wax hair meets his forehead. 

In contrast, his voice is like yours when you cried out. It’s deep, powerful and commanding. But it holds a disinterest, as if he’s annoyed with himself for doing as you asked. What he expected you to want from him clearly didn’t involve returning a discarded piece of his weapon. 

“I imagine you’d like to keep it,” he says. “you may.” 

“Is it silver? It feels like it.” you ask. 

“What other metal could it be?” he replies. What, indeed. You’re thinking again of the hunter and his iron arrows, your stomach twists. You step toward him and the elf instinctively retreats. 

Slowing your steps, you hold the spearhead out to him before setting it in the centre of the stump. Your eyes are fixed on him all the while as you return to the distance that made him most comfortable.

“I know who you are,” you tell him. “do you want to know my name?” the prince blinks. 

“Not particularly,” but he moves forward, unsure why you’ve decided to ignore his permission to keep what belongs to him. 

“Oh,” you say, sounding flat. Perhaps you deserved that. You watch him pick up the piece of silver, turn it over in his hands and tuck it into his pocket. “well, I know you’re Prince Nuada. My hunter told me he saw you.” 

“What have you done to be hunted?” it doesn’t immediately occur to you that he could be joking, there’s no smile on his dark lips. Your retort comes from somewhere deep, perhaps terrifying. 

“Not me, he happens to be hunting you.” you say, rushing to add, “I don’t agree with him.” 

Prince Nuada looks just as grim as he did before you spoke, he does not retreat. Maintaining eye contact has never been so difficult for you, but you do it. You stare him down. 

“Your hunter saw me behind the point of an iron-tipped arrow,” he says. His voice is quiet thunder that chills your bones. 

“I’m sorry,” you reply. “I told him not to, I begged him---” you cut yourself off when his eyes remain the same. Two of the coldest moons you’ve ever seen heavy-set in his face. He’s livid, more full of hate than you’ve been taught elves can feel. 

Part of you considers now the best time to exit, but it feels wrong to simply turn and run. The prince has what belongs to him, regardless of if he needed it back. Yet you feel compelled to explain further the reason why you thought to return it. 

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t want your silver,” you can’t speak to whether most share the sentiment. “and I don’t want someone who’d kill for it to have it. Even if he brings me rabbits.” 

“Why?” Nuada asks, you doubt that he’s wondering after the rabbits. 

“Sometimes things don’t belong to me. I find that makes me feel safer than anything else.” maybe one day you might not be so alone in thinking that. 

Prince Nuada says nothing to that, in fact he looks very much like he wants to leave. He could run again, you suppose, nothing’s keeping him here. It occurs to you that you were able to catch him this time because he let you. Your concern for his safety at the hands of the hunter is unfounded, he won’t be caught by him. 

“And I think humans have taken enough,” you add, almost without a reason other than it’s true. Keep to the cities, those are the parameters of the truce. Everyone knows this and everyone knows the loophole, the borders of town getting wider every year. It doesn’t matter if it’s all with copper, it takes longer for the trees to grow than it does to cut them down. 

His eyes are still cold, glowing in the now-dusk. Evening is here with an off-ink sky and a miserable chill. Home lies behind you, it’s time to go there. Nuada says nothing as you incline your head, turn and walk back through the trees.

A minute after your departure, you hear a slight rustling. Evidently that’s all the noise he need make to disappear. You keep your eyes forward, not daring to make certain that he’s gone before heading in the direction of your house.


End file.
